Starting a strength cycle

Starting Monday I am going to run two Smolov Jr cycles concurrently. The first cycle will be for my back squat and the second will be for my push press. I will squat on Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday and press on Tuesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday. I will take Sunday’s off during April. Will work out perfectly for Easter! (That is about the extent of my religious actions…)

I will not do many Metcons for the entire month of April, if any. Next week my wife is out of town and I will need to take care of the kids in the morning and get them to relatives to watch while I work and then pick them up at night on my way home. I won’t have much time for the gym so I will be using 24 Hour Fitness near my office.

On squat days I might mix in light front squats or overhead squats after Smolov and on press days I might mix in bench or some press variation after Smolov. In both cases the intensity will be light. I will do max rep or max weight exercises to train other areas like core and back. If I do deadlift work (I plan to once a week) it will be higher rep so it does not get really heavy.

This will be interesting to see if A. I gain some strength when I re-test late in April and B. if I lose any sort of “cardio” during the four week period. My hope is that the answers are “yes” and “no”. We’ll see.